Heir to Greatness

He was born in 1757 as Marie-Joseph-Paul-Yves-Roch-Gilbert du Motier de Lafayette. His expansive name seems overwrought until you consider the familial reasoning behind it — that nearly all of his male ancestors answered the call to arms. One such ancestor, the legendary Marechal de France Gilbert de La Lafayette III fought side by side with Joan of Arc at Orleans.

Owing to this, the family developed the habit of imputing their progeny with the names of Saints in the hope that by doing so, God would shield them against harm on the battlefield. His own father had died on such a field, having been struck by a cannonball in the Seven Years War, when Lafayette was but two.

Young Lafayette was raised by his paternal grandmother, who, from the very beginning, taught him that courage was the greatest of all virtues and that it alone was the coin to purchase liberty, honor and glory. As he matured, his hulking imagination overflowed with Arthurian heroes who risked everything in honor of a noble cause.

America!

After a long, arduous trip across the most dangerous ocean in the world, the young noble stepped onto American soil just north of Charleston, near North Island at the entrance to Georgetown Bay. It was midnight; not a soul was stirring. His first words upon pressing his foot onto his newly adopted country “were an oath to conquer or die for America’s cause.”

His new countrymen received the young marquis well. George Washington treated him as the son he never had. Though he could barely speak English, his brilliance and bearing endeared him to all.

True to his lineage, and despite his tender age of nineteen, he fought bravely alongside his mentor George Washington. He was wounded in his first ever battle at Brandywine Creek. “It is not dangerous. Do not mind it — it is just a scratch,” he said to a curious boy who queried him as he left the battlefield.

In fact, it was not a mere scratch. A large musket ball had passed through the calf of his left leg. He was bleeding profusely and in the age of primitive medicine. Having stopped to tend to his wound and weak from the loss of blood, he was nearly captured by the British, who would have lugged the noble knight back to the Tower of London in chains in order to humiliate him, Louis XVI and all of France.

All the British generals expended considerable effort in multiple attempts to capture the Marquis. They knew for certain that his capture would deflate France’s enthusiasm for the American cause, a cause they were now financing as well as contributing troops, ships and implements of war.

“I have come here to learn, mon general, not to teach.”

As with his own king’s soldiers, those in the service of King George would never catch him. When he first met the now legendary George Washington and viewed his tattered army, his disappointment must have been evident. The American Commander-in-Chief expressed his embarrassment to the bespoken French nobleman. Lafayette responded, “I have come here to learn, mon general, not to teach.”

And learn he did. Never having fought on the battlefield before, it was astounding to all how quickly he absorbed and excelled in the art of war. Seeing the success of “The Swamp Fox” — Francis Marion, in the swamps and forests of South Carolina, where the bold Carolinian invented modern guerrilla warfare, the young General adopted his techniques to frustrate and eventually ensnare Lord Cornwallis’ army at Yorktown. It is there that the trap was sprung and with the aid of a French fleet which Lafayette had summoned.

The British army was bottled up with nowhere to go. Admiral De Grasse, in charge of the French flotilla, urged Lafayette to press his advantage and attack, thereby insuring the glory for himself and all of France. Lafayette refused. The glory, he said, was Washington’s and his American army’s. He would wait for his venerable mentor to arrive. His humility in such moments was genuine and would reappear, again and again, throughout his life.

The victory at Yorktown was the turning point in the war and brought about its end. All that has transpired since would not have happened were it not for Lafayette and his bold dedication to the patriot cause. Americans of yesteryear and today owe to him their veneration, remembrance and, most of all, their liberty.